In this video, Lars answers a question from one of our readers where she asked,

“I have been collecting rain for my garden for the past two years. I was wondering what the best treatment is to keep the mold away. At the bottom of the barrel, it becomes black fairly quickly. Will moldy water hurt my garden?”

This is a great question and something that concerns a good number of people.

The main thing we wanted to point out is that it is not actually mold, but instead is merely sediment that has settled in the bottom of your rain barrel. The black “gunk” that builds up in the bottom of your rain barrel could be from leaves, dirt or other various debris from your roof that washes down into the barrel. Even with a screen on top of your barrel, this debris can still slip through and settle at the bottom.

This sediment will not hurt your garden, and it is okay if the water is not perfectly clear.

One way to get rid of the sediment is to simple rinse out your rain barrel at the end of the season.

Thanks for a great question, Susan. We hope this cleared some things up for you.

In this video, Lars answers a question from one of our readers concerning a rain barrel with an absence of water coming from said barrel. The question at hand is this:

“No water is coming out of my barrel. Ok, so it was my big moment. I have the rain barrel, I bought a nice new hose. I connected the hose to the spigot (located at the bottom of the barrel). I turned it on, I waited. I waited longer, I waited even longer. No water has come out of the hose yet. Any suggestions? Maybe the hose has too much curl? Maybe it’s not downhill enough? I tried sucking on the hose to see if that helped. It didn’t. Thanks.”

This is a great question. First off, we want to hope that you really aren’t sucking any water from your rain barrel. No one wants to end up with a mouthful of dirty rainwater, and you certainly wouldn’t want to swallow any of that water, either.

The first thing you want to do is take off the hose and make sure that water is coming out of the spigot without the hose connected. This is to be sure that the spigot is not stopped up. If the spigot is working fine, then chances are your rain barrel is not downhill enough. Rain barrels do not generate pressure like a waterhose when you hook it up to a spigot. So, if you have a 50 or 100 foot hose, the hose must be downhill the whole way. You can also try using a shorter hose, this would also help. Additionally, you want to be sure that your rain barrel is downhill enough to ensure proper water flow.

Additionally, if you don’t want to use a hose and the spigot is working properly, you can use buckets to get the water out of your rain barrel – straight from the spigot.

“Is it OK to use rain water collected from a roof with asphalt shingle roofing on it to use in a vegetable garden?”

This is another great question. While you may be worried about using rainwater from an asphalt shingle roof on a vegetable garden – don’t be. Your vegetables will be just fine. When you think about it, before you had a rain barrel, you most likely had rain water from a downspout pouring out onto that spot in your lawn, and everything’s been alright. In this case, you are talking about vegetables, and we understand you’re going to eat the vegetables. However, there’s no worry. You’re going to take the water and pour it in the dirt, and it will get filtered by the dirt, and then the root of the plants…so it’s no problem at all.

So in summary, it’s perfectly fine to use rainwater in your vegetable garden! Have at it.

Thanks for your wonderful question, and best of luck with your garden! Hope it turns out quite well!